Birth and Spread of Communalism in India

• Rise of nationalism, communalism

Characteristic Features of Indian Communalism

• More importance to one’s own ethnic/religious group rather than to the wider society as a whole.
• Communal Nationalism - Secular interests are the same.
• Liberal Communalism - Two religious communities have different religious interests, different interests in the secular sphere.
• Extreme Communalism - Not only do different religious communities have different interests, but also that these interests are incompatible.
• Nothing unique about Indian communalism, other societies, produced similar phenomena and ideologies such as Fascism, anti-Semitism, racism, the Catholic-Protestant conflict in Northern Ireland and the Christian-Muslim conflict in Lebanon.
• Bypassing basic economic interests, the communalists claim to protect interests which do not necessarily exist.
• Communalism is a modern phenomenon - emerged out of modern politics based on mass mobilisation and popular participation, necessary for people to have wider links and loyalties and to form establish identities.
• Spread of modern ideas of nation, class and cultural-linguistic identity.
• India, religious consciousness was transformed into communal consciousness.
• Rising middle classes who propagated imaginary communal interests to further their own economic interests.
• Communalists - channel through which colonialists expanded their social base.
• Communalists and colonialists were helped in their sinister motives by the fact that often socio-economic distinctions in Indian society coincided with religious distinctions.
• Conservative social reactionary elements gave full support to communalism.
• Religiosity itself did not amount to communalism but in a country where lack of education and low awareness of the outside world was a sad reality, religion had the potential of becoming, and was used as, a vehicle of communalism.

Reasons for Growth of Communalism

Socio-economic Reasons

• Modern Western thought and scientific ideas were not absorbed by Muslim intellectuals, who remained traditional and backward.
• Modern education spread among Muslims, the proportion of the educated was far lower among Muslims than among Hindus, Parsis or Christians.
• Reactionary big landlords and the richer classes to continue to wield influence over the Muslim masses.
• Landlords and zamindars, supported the British rule out of self-interest.
• Educated Muslims found few opportunities in business or the professions.
• British officials and the loyalist Muslim leaders incited the educated Muslims against the educated Hindus.
• Syed Ahmad Khan and others demanded special treatment for the Muslims in the matter of government service, on the one hand, and on the other told the Muslims that if the educated Muslims remained loyal to the British.
• Same arguments were used by some loyalist Hindus and Parsis.
• Unemployment was an acute problem in India, especially for the educated.
• Advocates of short-sighted and short-term solutions such as reservation in jobs on communal, provincial or caste lines.
• Colonial government to use concessions, favours and reservations to fuel communal and separatist tendencies.
• Dominance of traditional reactionary elements over the Muslim masses helped a communal outlook to take root.

British Policy of Divide and Rule

• Muslims especially after the Wahabi and 1857 revolts, subjected to repression and discrimination by the British government.
• Introduction of English education had undermined Arabic and Persian learning, further to the economic backwardness and exclusion of the Muslims from service.
• 1870s emergence of Indian nationalism and growing politicisation of the educated middle classes, Government reversed its policy of repression of Muslims.
• Favours and reservations, and used them against nationalist forces. Ex: Sir Syed Ahmed Khan to counter the growing influence of the Congress.
• Muslim masses to stay away from the Congress, started talking of separate interests of Hindus and Muslims.

Communalism in History Writing

• Ancient phase as the Hindu phase and the medieval phase (which included the rule of the Turks, the Afghans and the Mughals) as the Muslim phase.
• Conflicts of ruling classes during the medieval phase (Hindu-Muslim conflicts).
• Historians ignored the fact that politics, ancient and medieval, based on economic and political interests and not on religious considerations.

Side-effects of Socio-religious Reform Movements

• Process of insulating one community from the influence of another religious community.

Side-effects of Militant Nationalism

• Early nationalists made conscious efforts to remove minority fears.
• 1889 the Congress decided not to take up any issue opposed by the Muslims. But later, coming of militant nationalism.
• Tilak’s Ganapati and Shivaji festivals and anti-cow slaughter campaigns created much suspicion.
• Swadeshi Movement with elements like dips in the Ganga and revolutionary activity with oath-taking before goddesses were hardly likely to enthuse Muslims into these campaigns in a big way.
• Lucknow Pact (1916) and the Khilafat agitation (1920-22).
• Khilafat question came up, there unease among some Congressmen, this tendency did not immediately clash with Indian nationalism, fact made its supporters anti-imperialist, habit of looking at political questions from a religious point of view.

Communal Reaction by Majority Community

• 1870s itself expression to anti-Muslim sentiments.
• Extent of declaring that the British had liberated the land from Muslim tyranny and saved the Hindus from the oppression by Muslims.
• Came organisations to promote a communal outlook. Punjab Hindu Sabha, founded in 1909 by U.N. Mukherjee and Lal Chand, opposed the Congress for trying to unite Indians of all colours into a single nation.
• Argued that Hindus should side with the colonial government in their fight against Muslims. All-India Hindu Mahasabha held its first session in April 1915.
• Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was established in 1925.
• Muslim communal elements - landlords, traditional religious leaders and bureaucrats – exercised a lot of influence on the Muslims.

Evolution of the Two-Nation Theory

1887

• Frontal attack on the Congress by Dufferin, the viceroy, and Colvin, the Lt. Governor of the United Provinces. Syed Ahmed Khan appealed to the educated Muslims to stay away from the Congress, although some Muslims did join the Congress.

1906

• Agha Khan led a Muslim delegation (called the Shimla delegation) to the viceroy, Lord Minto, to demand separate electorates for Muslims.
• All India Muslim League to preach loyalty to the British.
• Muslim intelligentsia away from the Congress

1909

• Separate electorates were awarded under Morley-Minto Reforms.
• Punjab Hindu Sabha was founded by U.N. Mukherji and Lal Chand.

1915

• All India Hindu Mahasabha

1912-24

• Muslim league dominated by younger Muslim nationalists

1916

• Congress accepted the Muslim League demand of separate electorates, joint demands to the government.

1920-22

• Muslims participated in the Rowlatt and Khilafat Non-Cooperation agitations.

1920s

• Shadow of communal riots, Arya Samajists started Shuddhi (purification) and Sangathan (organisation) movements.
• Reconverting to Hinduism those who had converted to Islam.
• Muslims started the Tabligh and Tanzeem movements in retaliation.
• Swarajists were divided along communal lines.
• Spectacular accused the Congress of protecting only Hindu interests.
• Congress failed to evolve a suitable strategy to counter the rise of communalism.

1928

• Nehru report opposed by Muslim & Sikh League.
• Jinnah proposed fourteen points

1930-34

• Muslim League, Jamaat-i-ulema-i-Hind, State of Kashmir and Khudai Khidmatgars participated in the Civil Disobedience.
• Congress stayed away from two of the three round table conferences.

1932

• Communal Award accepted all Muslim communal demands contained in the 14 points.

1937

• Muslim league performed badly in the 1937 provincial elections, decided to resort to extreme communalism.
• Early 1930s this idea of a separate Muslim nation was proposed by a young Muslim intellectual Rahmat Ali.
• Communalism was organised as a mass movement with its base among middle and upper classes.
• Vicious propaganda was launched against the Congress.
• Extreme communalism was based on fear, hatred and violence of word and deed.
• Extreme communalism of Muslims found its echo in the militant communal nationalism of Hindus represented by organisations such as the Hindu Mahasabha and RSS and in the thoughts of leaders like Golwalkar
• Increasing radicalisation
• Colonial administration had exhausted all other means to divide nationalists.
• Earlier failures to challenge communal tendencies had emboldened the communal forces.

1937-39

• Jinnah blocked all avenues for conciliation by forwarding the impossible demand that the Congress should declare itself a Hindu organisation & recognise the Muslim League as the sole representative of the Indian Muslims

March 24, 1940

• The ‘Pakistan Resolution’  at Lahore session of the Muslim League.
• Shall be autonomous and sovereign, and adequate safeguards to Muslims.

During Second World War

• Government gave a virtual veto to the League on political settlement.
• League made full use of this privilege and stuck to its demand of a separate Pakistan throughout the negotiations under the August Offer, Cripps’ proposals, Shimla Conference and Cabinet Mission Plan.
• Independent Pakistan comprising Muslim majority areas of Punjab, Sindh, Baluchistan, North-West Frontier Province and Bengal in 1947.